1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods of assembling and configuring computing devices and computing devices so assembled and configured.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, computers and many other electronic devices are built on a chassis. Chassis, also called case, is the metal frame that serves as the structural support for electronic components. Typically, every computer system has at least one chassis to house the circuit boards and wiring. The chassis also contains slots for expansion boards. If one wants to insert more boards than there are slots, one will need an expansion chassis, which provides additional slots. (See, for example, www.thefreedictionary.com/chassis, and sbc.webopedia.com/TERM/S/chassis.html.) Shared by all concepts of chassis are the requirements of stiffness and support, as required to hold components in place whose orientation is critical and must be held within tight tolerances, and which are relatively heavy and subjected to other forces such as heat stress and vibration or pressure caused by heat dissipation devices or the air or liquid flows driven by them.
Driven by these requirements is the distinction between, on the one hand, structural chassis parts and, on the other hand, electronic parts, such as circuit boards, cabling, and wiring, where the former are heavy, strong, and usually rectangular in shape, and take no active part in the device function, while the latter are mounted within the former and do all the electronics. In the course of development it is normal to find chassis panels open and cables and components hanging loose, subject to frequent change by engineers, who are experienced enough to position them by hand for successful operation despite the lack of physical support. One such example is described in “Modular Microprocessor Kit for Undergraduate Laboratory on Industrial Automation”, IEEE Trans. Education, Vol. 44, No. 2, page 218, May 2001. Such manipulation of chassisless components is very useful to developers, despite its severe limitations, parts not designed for it, strains on cables, danger of electrical short circuits, and limitation of component count by connector arrays designed for chassis use.
At the same time, miniaturization of peripheral components has progressed to such a degree that chassisless or dangling peripherals such as the iPod™ are now available to general-purpose users. A similar miniaturization of powerful central processing units (CPUs) is underway at the die level (Michael Flynn, Keynote Address, CSREA Multiconference, Las Vegas, Nev., Jun. 21, 2004), but the complexity of state control, communications hardware and system software harnesses has kept system implementations of such CPUs within the conventional chassis.